Radio Shack: Steve Vents...

Can someone please tell me why the hell Radio Shack needs to know every bit of personal information about you when you buy something?

What the hell?

I got this new camera right? And I am down in San Diego and I took a photo of something and I really needed to send it out tonight. Well... So I get back to my room and my card reader stopped reading my camera card. So I looked up Radio Shack and punched the address into my Streets and Trips thing and BAM!! There was one right over the hill.

So I zoom in there with my rental car, the... Pontiac Grand Prix... woo hoo, Good Times... And I ran into the store.

At the register is a assistant manager, a regular worker and some customer reading the warranty of some open box iPod thing. I found what I was looking for and took it to the register.

I put the item down and present my credit card.

"Name," the assistant manager says.

"Uh... Steve..." I say.

"Last name, " he says.

"Um... Dude, you like totally have my credit card... I am sure it is the same."

"LOOK!!!" he says, "I just need your name in case you lose your receipt and need to return this item."

What a bullshit excuse I am thinking as I tell him my explosive last name.

"Address?" he says.

"Um... Dude? What are you doing? I don't even live here... I live like 600 miles away... If I break the thing, I'll come back and buy another one... It's 10 bucks!! The picture I need is worth $100's more to me..."

He interrupts, "We need this data from our customers to send them special offers and..."

So I interrupt, " Okay... look! I just got off work, I tried to load my camera into my computer and it failed. My first instinct was to find Radio Shack on Google near my hotel. As soon as I found this location, I hopped into that 3-day old, puke grey Pontiac outside and drove straight here. I could have easily have run up to Fry's Electronics on the next block but their customer service is way more screwed up than yours."

"Credit or debit," He says.

"Credit, " I say, knowing that he's getting screwed out of 3% of the sale from VISA by me saying credit and not debit.

"Can I see your ID?" He says...

Then a revelation hit me. I could have said I was Tony Masselli from Brooklyn but now living as a house keeper in Connecticut because he'd never look at my card and see that my name was different so what the hell could he have done?

I give up... Those bastards!